Toronto council rejects new taxes to pay for transit

Mayor Rob Ford calls it one of city’s “greatest days” after council tells province not to impose most revenue options.

Not everyone was as ecstatic as Mayor Rob Ford at the surprise outcome.

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DAVID RIDER
/ TORONTO STAR
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Councillor Ana Bailao brandishes a list of proposed taxes to pay for regional transit expansion during city council on Thursday. Bail‹o urged her colleagues to suggest preferred revenue tools to the provincial Metrolinx transportation agency.

By:David Rider and Tess KalinowskiStaff Reporters, Published on Thu May 09 2013

A majority of councillors — including centrists who fought Ford to have the debate in the first place — rejected a gas tax, parking levy, road tolls, payroll tax and vehicle registration tax among other money-raising ideas.

Development charges and a regional sales tax weren’t rejected but neither were they endorsed, sending a clear message to Premier Kathleen Wynne that it will be up to her minority government to spend political capital raising $2 billion a year to expand public transit in the Toronto region.

“I’d advise her to not even talk about revenue tools any more,” said a jubilant Ford. “I feel fantastic. We fended off the wolves today and saved the taxpayers at least $1,000 a family, a household, and I couldn’t be happier.”

“This is one of the greatest days in Toronto history,” said the mayor who had earlier chided councillors for daring to support taxes he said the provincial government couldn’t be trusted not to stick in a “slush fund.”

TTC chair Karen Stintz, Ford’s transit nemesis and likely mayoral rival in 2014, argued after the vote that council had made a constructive decision.

“Ultimately it’s a provincial decision how they choose to proceed and what council has done is we’ve made a statement on the kinds of revenue options that we don’t think are in the interests of the city,” Stintz said.

Centrist councillor Josh Colle said he proposed councillors vote against, rather than for, specific levies to give tax-shy colleagues “cover” to leave some on the table, in effect endorsing them.

“We as a council endorsed revenue tools as something to use. Obviously when it got down to the specifics there was less willingness to cite them,” he said, adding the province will view the vote as endorsing a regional sales tax and one-time development charges.

The city manager’s report estimates the two levies together could generate up to $1.5 billion per year.

Left-leaning councillor Janet Davis called it “a very sad day for the city of Toronto” and accused “the Karen Stintz contingent” of chickening out.

Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon said councillors “just don’t want to stick their neck out and do their jobs. It’s ridiculous. It was a dysfunctional kindergarten class, possibly.”

Having the debate and leaving two levies on the table is progress, she added.

In another victory for Ford, council agreed to ask the province to reopen an agreement it signed last year with the TTC and Metrolinx to turn the Scarborough RT (SRT) into light rail transit (LRT).

Most councillors now say an extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway is preferable to avoid a minimum three-year closure of the SRT and eliminate an LRT transfer at Kennedy Station where the SRT would connect with the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT.

And, in one of the biggest surprises of the marathon debate, council agreed to look at closing the loop between Downsview Station and the Yonge line at Sheppard. The western extension of the Sheppard subway was floated by Ford in his election campaign and has more recently been championed as the North York Relief Line by Councillor James Pasternak.

In a statement Thursday, Metrolinx would only say, “We look forward to reviewing council’s advice. We will be delivering the investment strategy to our board of directors on May 27.”

It was less welcoming, however, to reopening the agreement to convert the SRT to an LRT.

“We have a plan that is based on a legal agreement signed in November with the City of Toronto and TTC and we are acting on that plan. Our focus is on delivering the agreed upon plan and we are moving forward with LRT to replace the Scarborough RT,” said the statement.

Earlier Thursday, Infrastructure Ontario released a statement saying that bidding has closed on a contract to build a carhouse that would accommodate the vehicles on the SRT and planned Sheppard LRT lines.

With files from Rob Ferguson and Robert Benzie

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